snaking along his cheekbone and shone in the glass eyes of the jawless wolf’s head he wore as a headdress. One jeweled hand rested on his walking stick. His fur-lined coat was open, revealing a bare, muscled torso decorated with a golden torque and tribal-looking tattoos.
“Well, Serafina Sullivan. Here we are.” The gentleman Wolf’s black-rimmed eyes glittered with amusement. “And Jack. Thank you, Anna.”
Anna looked warily around at the wolves. Finn felt the elixir shimmering coldly through her blood and slid an arm around Anna’s shoulders as Jack snapped shut the umbrella and handed it back to Anna.
“You see, Finn, Anna,” Jack said, his voice sultry, “the Madadh aillaid doesn’t like to play with his victims unless he has an audience.”
“Jack knows me well.” Seth Lot didn’t smile. “Once, we were very alike.”
“We were never”—Jack watched Seth Lot from beneath lowered lashes—“alike.”
“You were a killer, Jack.” Seth Lot spoke gently. “You enjoyed it—sending those Fatas to their deaths . . . White Bee and Mr. Bones and that idiot carnival giant.”
The wind drifted Jack’s rain-glittering hair over his face as he said quietly, “I never killed innocents.”
Lot continued, “And what about the Lily Girls?”
There was a bitter twist to Jack’s mouth. “They were tricked—”
“But you knew, Jack, that by making those three girls fall in love with you you’d be putting them in danger. You grew a heart for each, but they were selfish hearts—especially the last one, seeded by the girl who would have taken your place as a sacrifice, the girl standing beside you right now.”
Finn, who did not care that Jack had once loved the three Lily Girls, and who reasonably knew she hadn’t been Jack’s only love—he’d been around for nearly two hundred years, after all—withdrew her hand from Jack’s and took a step back, pretending that the news hurt her, when it did not. She turned and walked to one of the empty chairs. Tracking her with his gaze, Jack moved along the other side of the table.
As Anna sat beside Finn, the masked wolves began talking among themselves, reaching for wine goblets, slicing meat from the ornately posed roadkill on the table.
Finn spoke as if the words were shards of glass in her throat. “Where is Lily?”
Lot curled his fingers. “Here.”
Two female Fatas glided from the shadows with Lily between them like a young queen in a gown of sleeveless black with a high, ruffled collar. Lily lurched toward Finn, was yanked back by one of the wolf girls.
Finn began to rise, but Lot’s jeweled fingers closed over hers and she sat back, watching as her sister was escorted to the chair next to Jack. The wolves continued to revel as if mortal pain and fear were exquisite appetizers. Seth Lot said to Finn, in a voice luxurious with hate, “You stole her from me. With me, she was a queen. Now she is nothing.”
Lily’s eyes, inked around with elaborate designs, widened as she leaned toward Lot and smiled fiercely. “I faked all of it. Every minute with you.”
He stared at her and the beast flickered beneath his skin but was swiftly concealed. Civility returned to his manner. “Here is my offer, Serafina Sullivan. You take your sister’s place at my side and I’ll allow your loved ones to leave. Alive.”
It was a deal meant to cause the most harm, to leave Finn’s family and friends—and Jack—forever not knowing what had become of her.
“Don’t you touch her!” Lily leaped to her feet, was slammed back into her chair by Antoinette. The Rooks stirred. Bottle looked up, his injured eye obscured by the beaked mask.
When Jack met Anna’s gaze, Finn glanced at Anna and saw a flickering sorrow there. Doubt began to shadow her—Jack had a plan, one he had not told her about.
“Anna,” Finn whispered, “what do you know?”
Anna bowed her head. “I see a death that should have been and never was.”
A death that should have been . . . Finn lifted her gaze to Lot’s blue one. “You invited Jack and me. You can’t hurt us.”
“Not that again. I didn’t invite your sister or the oracle. I took them.” Lot twirled a bone-handled knife between his fingers, his expression disdainful. “Stop trying to be clever.” He pushed a plate of little white cakes oozing red toward her. “Have a cake. Someone put their heart into them.”
Finn saw the killer in Jack’s eyes when he turned his head to regard Seth Lot, who reached out to pluck one of the morning glories from